It may be rainy, cloudy and cool. But there's at least one bright spot in your morning: Northwest News. So welcome back.

As our regular readers know, Northwest News is a daily aggregation of some of the top news stories from around the Pacific Northwest, which for our purposes is Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

We scan news websites from newspapers and television stations each morning, then summarize some of what we find for you, giving you just a bit more information for the day ahead.

Today, we start our tour in Vancouver, Wash., where the Columbian has an update on a bizarre and grisly homicide involving a woman accused of killing her longtime husband. The paper's story notes that the daughter of the woman said that the death brought to an end a "toxic" relationship between Donna Williams, 51, and the late Mark Williams, 55.

Clark County prosecutors charged Williams with suspicion of first-degree murder Thursday in the death of her husband of more than 30 years, Mark. The 51-year-old woman called 911 on Wednesday, May 30, and told authorities that she used a hammer to kill her 55-year-old husband two weeks earlier, after suffering years of abuse, according to a 911 tape released by Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency.

Williams told investigators that on the night before she killed her husband, they had an argument over his cocaine use, according to a police probable cause statement. He hit her in the eye, she told police, and the next morning, when she saw her black eye, she became enraged and killed him with a hammer while he was asleep.

Clark County sheriff’s deputies found Williams outside her Sifton neighborhood home, 12216 N.E. 76th St., smoking a cigarette, according to court documents. Investigators found her husband’s body in a bed in the back room covered with blood-soaked bedding.

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Now, we'll hop up to Spokane where the Spokesman Review has the sad story of a missionary couple from eastern Washington that was killed over the weekend when there plane crashed in northwest Zambia.

Jay and Katrina Erickson, who attended Hillyard Baptist Church, were killed Saturday when the six-seat Cessna aircraft Jay was piloting crashed into the Zambezi River. Their daughters, 2-year-old Marina and 1-year-old Coral, had stayed behind at the Chitokoloki Mission Hospital where the couple worked.

“They were living their dream and doing what they thought the Lord wanted them to do,” Pastor Ron Ulmer of Hillyard Baptist said Monday.

The couple, both in their late 20s, met at Moody Bible Institute in Spokane and were married in 2008. They traveled to Zambia in late February to begin a yearlong mission to transport food, medical supplies, doctors and missionaries between the 150-bed mission hospital and other remote outposts.

In Portland, meanwhile, The Oregonian is reporting that a Portland police officer who had been accused of multiple charges in connection with a drunken driving arrest was allowed to plead to reckless driving and have the other charges dismissed.

Reporter Maxine Bernstein went to Tillamook to cover the plea hearing for Officer Sean Sothern, 39, who pleaded no contest to the reckless driving charge. In exchange, other charges were dismissed. They included attempt to elude police, refusal to take a breath test and recklessly endangering another.

As part of the deal, Tillamook County Judge Mari Garric Trevino dismissed four other charges Sothern faced from a September indictment: attempt to elude police, refusal to take a breath test and two counts of recklessly endangering another.

In October, Sothern had pleaded no contest to driving under the influence of intoxicants and entered a one-year diversion program. Sothern's attorney James McIntyre said his client has completed alcohol treatment under the program and is remorseful, and the DUII charge likely will be dismissed Nov. 22.

McIntyre described the August incident as a "single exercise" of bad judgment and an "aberration," noting Sothern has been a law-abiding citizen and "outstanding police officer."

Sothern, wearing a gray suit and accompanied by his wife to court, addressed the judge briefly. "I am responsible for what happened that night," he said. "It was a very long summer leading up to that particular night. It was bad choices."

Sothern had a blood-alcohol content of .137 more than four hours after his arrest. That's well above Oregon's limit of .08.

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Looking for more news from around the Pacific Northwest? Just go to The Oregonian.